Half to edwin c



(No Model.) 2 Sheets-Sheet 2 E. C. GROOKBR.

ELECTRIC RAILWAY. No. 592,528. Patented Oct. 26,1897.

INVENTOR E C. Urocler;

NTTED STATES EETCE.

PATENT EBEN C. CECCKER, or ERIDGEPORT, CONNECTICUT, AssIGNoR or CNE` HALE To EDWIN C. HowE, CE sAME PLACE.

ELECTRIC RAILWAY.

SPECIFICATION forming part of Letters Patent No. 592,528, dated October 26, 1897.

Application filed March 1, 1897l Serial No. 626,636. (No model.)

To all whom it may concern:

Beit known that I, EBEN C. CROCKER, a citizen of the United States, residing at Bridgeport, in the county of Fairfield and State of Connecticut, have invented certain new and useful Improvements in Electric Railways; and I do hereby declare the following to be a full, clear, and exact description of the invention, such as will enable others skilled in the art to which it appertains to make and use the same.

My invention relates to certain new and useful improvements in electric railways, but more particularly has reference to railways which employ a third rail for transmitting the operating-current to the car.

The object of my invention is to provide an exceedingly economical and efficient system for electric railways, and at the same time to observe proper precautions as against danger from the current; and with these ends in view my invention consists in the details of construction and combination of effective parts, such as will hereinafter be particularly set forth, and then specifically designated by the claims.

In the accompanying drawings, which form a part of my application, Figure l is an elevation, partly in section, showing a car and roadbed properly constructed and equipped in ac-v cordance with my improvement; Fig. 2; a detail broken perspective of the road-bed; Fig. 8, a detail cross-section taken through the third or line rail and the road-bed box, and Fig. 4 a detail broken sectional elevation showing one of the magnets carried by the car.

Similar numbers of reference denote like parts in the several figures of the drawings.

My improvement has nothing whatever to do with any particular kind of motor carried by the car or with any special construction of controller-box and connections between such box and motor, and I have therefore not illustrated such motor, controller-box, and connections, and I willl confine my description specifically to the means which l have provided for positively supplying the electric current to the car.

1 is an insulated conduit which extends beneath the road-bed 2 throughout the entire line, and within this conduit is the live or line wire 3.

4 are boxes, preferably of insulating material, which are sunken in the road-bed. Within each of these boxes is mounted a pair of tubes 5, of any suitable material, Wound exteriorly by continuous insulated coils (5, said coils being surmounted and kept in place by rings 7, the lower terminal 8 of said coils being electrically connected with the linewire 3, while the upper terminal 9 is electrically connected with a contact spring or brush lO, preferablyof copper, which latteris within an opening 11 in the top of the box.

12 is an armature which normally rests upon the rings 7 and upon which the spring 10 is mounted, said spring and armature being insulated from each other by the insulatingblock 13. Depending from this armature are pins 14, to the lower extremities of which are secured soft-iron cores 15, which latter, in their normal or lowest position, are without the magnetic iield of the coils 6.

It will be readily understood that this construction, above described and comprising the tubes 5, coils 6, and cores 15, is in reality a solenoid, the action of which is, of course, to attract the cores 15 when once the latter are elevated within the magnetic field, and in this respect I do not, therefore, wish t0 be limited to the specilic construction of solenoid described, since in this respect there may be considerable variation as to construction without departing from the spirit of my invention.

The third-rail system which I employ comprises rails 16 between the car-wheel rails, and these rails 16 rest upon insulated blocks 17 and are separated at their abutting ends by a space sufficient to prevent the jumping of the current from one rail to the other, which space is preferably filled by any suitable insulating material 18. I preferably locate the solenoids above described in pairs, which are near the abutting extremities of these rails, as shown in the drawings, so that there is a pair of these solenoids at each end of a rail; but thisarrangement may be departed from, as will be hereinafter explained. These .third rails extend immediately above the IOO,

Aopenings 11 in the boxes, being preferably in improvement which relates to the road-bed construction, and 'I will now describe the construction and operation of the devices carried by the car and which cooperate with the parts heretofore described in producingthe result aimed at.

I have shown a car similarly equipped at each end with my improvement, and it is therefore deemed necessary to merely state that this is done forY the obvious purpose of enabling the motorman to operate the car at either end.

19 2O are levers which are independently pivoted at .or about their central portion to a hanger 21 beneath the platform of the car. One end of each lever is normally elevated by means of coilfsprings 22 23, which are attached to the bod yof the car and to said ends, while on the other or normally-depressed extremities of these levers are carried magnets 24 25. These magnets are both alike and one of them is shown in detail at Fig. 4, and

.it will be observed that there are two windings around the cores of said magnets, the inner coils 26 being .connected to any suitable storage battery 27, while the outer coils 28 are connected to at the lower ends -to the cores of the magnets, the upper ends of these outer coils being led into the controller-box 29.

The operation of my improvement is as follows: Presupposing the car to be at astate of rest and with no current whatever on the third rail, the magnets 24 25 are vitalized from the storage battery 27, which magnets, through the medium of the rails 16, attract the armatures l2 until a good contact is made between the rails and the brush or spring 10. As soon as this contact is made the current from the linefwire 3 will of course be led by the wire 8 up through the coils 28 to the controller-box, and the operation of the latter will now effect the movement of the car. As soon as the connection is made with the linewire in the manner above described the storage-battery current is automatically switched off in the usual manner, and right in this connection I would say that I have shown no storage battery, since it forms no part of my invention, and, moreover, in the connection in which I use it it constitutes a very ordinary expedient which is merely resorted to in rare instances when for unforeseen reasons the contact is broken between the rails 16 and the line-wire,

10 and these rails will thereafter be maintained by the influence of the solenoids heretofore described, while at the same time the electric current thereby transmitted from the line-wire through the outer coils 28 will revitalize said magnets.

The vprovision of means for temporarily vitalizing the magnets 24 25 is merely a precautionary measure, since under ordinary circumstances, and especially when the solenoids are located at short intervals beneath the rails 16, the influence of the solenoids will always maintain an electric contact between these rails and the line-wire. It will also be obvious that'single solenoids may be located beneath these rails 16 at suitable intervals with practically the same results as are effected by the arrangement shown and described herein, and'therefore I do not wish to be limited in this respect.

The separation and insulation of the rails at their abutting ends causes the current to be applied merely to the rails that are occupied by the car, for as fast as the car leaves preceding rails thearmatures 12 thereunder will of course fall, while the magnets 24 25, when they come in contact with succeeding rails,will effect the elevation of the armatures thereunder in precisely the same manner hereinbefore set forth. Of course if these rails were in close contact throughout their extent my improvement would operate precisely in the same manner as in the present instance, with the sole exception that the rails remote from the car would be charged with the current, which might prove dangerous to life.

If desired, the magnets 24 25 may carry separate shoes for contact with the rails, and in such instance these shoes will of course be a part of the magnet-cores and will be electrically connected with the coils 28, leading to the controller-box.

IOO

It will of course be understood that the outside rails 30 are bonded in the usual manner and that the wheels of the car travel thereon; also any suitable means may be provided and carried by the car for elevating the upper mag-` nets or shoes from the rail when such parts are not in use, and this of course will always be done at one end of said car.

From the foregoing description it will be readily comprehended that I have provided a series of insulated solenoids beneath the insulated rails 16 and have connected the terminals of the coils of these solenoids with the line-wire and with the contacts 10, carried by the armatures, which latter in turn carry the cores of the solenoids, and in this connection it will be clear that the contact-springs 10 are really parts of these armatures, since they are provided merely to afford good contact-points and are insulated from the armatures in ori der to avoid grounding.v

I have shown and described two magnets or shoes 24 25, in order to provide a proper collector to bridge the insulated space between IIO the rails, so that there may be no break in the current.

Having thus described my invention, what I claim as new, and desire to secure by Letters Patent, is

l. The combination with a railway system comprising bonded rails and cars capable 0f traveling thereon each car carrying a suitable motor and controller-box, of a continuous length of insulated rails between the firstmentioned rails laid and secured in position with their abutting ends insulated from each other, magnets carried in pairs at each end of the car and having their cores normally depressed with a spring action against said insulated rails, the coils of said magnets being electrically connected respectively with said cores and controller-box, the insulated linewire, the insulated solenoids located in the road-bed beneath the insulated rails, the armatures immediately beneath the latter and within the field of said magnets and carrying insulated contacts, and connection between the solenoid-cores and said armatures whereby the elevation of the latter will bring the former within the magnetic field of the solenoids, the coils of said solenoids being electrically connected respectively with said contacts and line-wire, substantiallyas set forth.

2. The combination of the insulated rails, the car carrying the controller-box and the pivoted levers which in turn carry magnets at their lower diver-ging ends, springs attached to said car and levers whereby the cores of said magnets are normally depressed against said rails, the insulator-box sunken in the road-bed beneath said rails and having solenoids mounted therein, the insulated line-wire to which the lower ends of the solenoid-coils are electrically connected,the armatures supported by said solenoids Within the iield of said magnets and carrying insulated contacts with which the upper ends of the solenoidcoils are electrically connected,` rigid c0nnections between said armatures and the cores of the solenoids whereby the elevation of the armatures will bring said cores within the magnetic field of the solenoids, and electrical connections between the lower ends of the magnet-coils and the magnet-cores and between the upper ends of said coils and the controller-box, substantially as set forth.

In testimony whereof I affix my signature in presence oftwo witnesses.

EBEN C. CROCKER.

Witnesses:

F. W'. SMITH, Jr., M. T. LOUGDEN. 

